akritas
01-20-2007, 07:12 AM
I think that we must learn some usefull informations regarding this script. Vinca is a collection of symbols found on many of the artifacts dating from between 6,000 to 4,500 BC excavated from sites in south-east Europe, in particular from Vinca near Belgrade but also in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, eastern Hungary, Moldova, southern Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia. There is no agreement on whether these symbols are a writing system.
This writing system have yet to be deciphered or even have only been partially. In some cases the writing systems have been deciphered but the languages they were used to write remain a mystery. Of course you can find some articles that support the decipherent of this scipt but non of them is correct.
The Vinca markings have not attracted as much linguistic attention as recognized but undeciphered scripts such as Crete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete)'s Linear A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A) and Easter Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island)'s Rongorongo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo). However, the Vinča material has still managed to stir some controversies of its own.
The primary advocate of the idea that the markings represent writing, and the person who coined the name "Old European Script", was Marija Gimbutas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas) (1921 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921)-1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994)), an important 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century) archaeologist and premier advocate of the notion that the Kurgan culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_culture) of Central Asia was an early culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans). Later in life she turned her attention to the reconstruction of a hypothetical pre-Indo-European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Indo-European) Old European culture, which she thought spanned most of Europe. She observed that neolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic) European iconography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconography) was predominantly female—a trend also visible in the inscribed figurines of the Vinca culture—and concluded the existence of a matristic (not matriarchal) culture that worshipped range of goddesses and gods. (Gimbutas did not posit a single universal Mother Goddess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Goddess).) She also incorporated the Vinča markings into her model of Old Europe, suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old European language, or, more probably, a kind of "pre-writing" symbolic system.
Most archaeologists and linguists disagree with Gimbutas' interpretation of the Vinča signs as a script:
it is all but universally accepted among scholars that the Sumerian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language)cuneiform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_%28script%29) script is in fact the earliest form of writing.
A rather odder controversy concerns the theories of Dr. Radivoje Pešić (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radivoje_Pesic&action=edit) from Belgrade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade). In his book The Vinča Alphabet, he proposes that all of the symbols exist in the Etruscan alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet), and conversely, that all Etruscan letters are found among Vinča signs.
Keep the above claim because you will find it in fron of you with debates as regard the old-FYROmian history.
However, these claims are not taken seriously by scholars, who demonstrate that the Etruscan alphabet is derived from the West Greek Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet), which in turn is derived from the Phoenician (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet) writing system.
This is however not completely incompatible with Pešić's views as he claims that the Phoenician writing system descended from Vinčan. Pešić's also maintains the continuity theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_Continuity_Theory), which claims a Slavic presence in the Balkans far earlier than the usually accepted date; hence, the poet Homer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer) must have spoken a Slavonic dialect (Pešić, 1989).
The case of the Vinca script is similar of the Linear A in Greece when some Greeks scholars claimed that the Linear A is a Greek script when is known that have not yet to be deciphered but have only been partially.
sources
Old European / Vinca writing (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm)
Old European Script - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_Script)
This writing system have yet to be deciphered or even have only been partially. In some cases the writing systems have been deciphered but the languages they were used to write remain a mystery. Of course you can find some articles that support the decipherent of this scipt but non of them is correct.
The Vinca markings have not attracted as much linguistic attention as recognized but undeciphered scripts such as Crete (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete)'s Linear A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A) and Easter Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island)'s Rongorongo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo). However, the Vinča material has still managed to stir some controversies of its own.
The primary advocate of the idea that the markings represent writing, and the person who coined the name "Old European Script", was Marija Gimbutas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas) (1921 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921)-1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994)), an important 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century) archaeologist and premier advocate of the notion that the Kurgan culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_culture) of Central Asia was an early culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans). Later in life she turned her attention to the reconstruction of a hypothetical pre-Indo-European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Indo-European) Old European culture, which she thought spanned most of Europe. She observed that neolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic) European iconography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconography) was predominantly female—a trend also visible in the inscribed figurines of the Vinca culture—and concluded the existence of a matristic (not matriarchal) culture that worshipped range of goddesses and gods. (Gimbutas did not posit a single universal Mother Goddess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Goddess).) She also incorporated the Vinča markings into her model of Old Europe, suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old European language, or, more probably, a kind of "pre-writing" symbolic system.
Most archaeologists and linguists disagree with Gimbutas' interpretation of the Vinča signs as a script:
it is all but universally accepted among scholars that the Sumerian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language)cuneiform (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_%28script%29) script is in fact the earliest form of writing.
A rather odder controversy concerns the theories of Dr. Radivoje Pešić (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Radivoje_Pesic&action=edit) from Belgrade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade). In his book The Vinča Alphabet, he proposes that all of the symbols exist in the Etruscan alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet), and conversely, that all Etruscan letters are found among Vinča signs.
Keep the above claim because you will find it in fron of you with debates as regard the old-FYROmian history.
However, these claims are not taken seriously by scholars, who demonstrate that the Etruscan alphabet is derived from the West Greek Alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet), which in turn is derived from the Phoenician (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet) writing system.
This is however not completely incompatible with Pešić's views as he claims that the Phoenician writing system descended from Vinčan. Pešić's also maintains the continuity theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_Continuity_Theory), which claims a Slavic presence in the Balkans far earlier than the usually accepted date; hence, the poet Homer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer) must have spoken a Slavonic dialect (Pešić, 1989).
The case of the Vinca script is similar of the Linear A in Greece when some Greeks scholars claimed that the Linear A is a Greek script when is known that have not yet to be deciphered but have only been partially.
sources
Old European / Vinca writing (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm)
Old European Script - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_Script)